


rusted and soldered

by Lady_Anonymia



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, Dangan Ronpa 3: The End of 希望ヶ峰学園 | The End of Kibougamine Gakuen | End of Hope's Peak High School
Genre: Canon-Typical Despair, Canonical Character Death, F/M, I have saved some people from death and other people have stayed in the grave ;-;, Is Yoi and Seiko's ship name Kimurayoi? Yoiko?, Post-Canon, Whatever it is it's in this story, You can read it as platonic or romantic either one they both work, i'm sad about it too
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-09
Updated: 2019-07-09
Packaged: 2020-06-09 15:40:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,729
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19478956
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lady_Anonymia/pseuds/Lady_Anonymia
Summary: Seiko couldn’t help feeling like she should be lying in a casket right now, with some other person in her place. After all, she was just the useless pharmacist who couldn’t save anyone during the Future Foundation’s killing game.-Seiko is alive again, and so is Yoi. Ruruka is not.





	rusted and soldered

**Author's Note:**

> I have had this story in the works for so long U~U'' Like, since-the-DR3-anime-ended long. Of course, by "in the works," I mean "I've had the idea since the anime ended, never wrote anything, and then busted this shit out in a few days". Whoops! #seikodeservedbetter #yoiDEFINITELYdeservedbetter

They hadn't been able to save everyone.

Gekkogahara had been beyond saving: already dead so much longer than the others, and with her head twisted 180 degrees, no one was under the impression that she _could’ve_ been. She was the very first buried in the Future Foundation's Memorial Cemetery.

Sakakura had too many wounds to bring back successfully. Yukizome, too, was unable to be revived. Munakata wasn't around to mourn either of them, in any case. He’d left the Foundation as soon as the incident was resolved, and hadn’t been seen since. No one thought to bring back Tengan, for obvious reasons. His grisly injuries would've prevented his resurrection, anyways.

Gozu had carved his brain to ribbons when he’d stabbed himself in the eyes: no way to fix that. And Ruruka (knife wounds criss-crossing her legs; candy spilling from her dry, dead mouth) had caused irreversible damage to her lungs suffocating around the confections she’d treasured so much in life. 

Most all those who’d been poisoned were successfully revived and still in recovery now, months after the incident. Kirigiri, who'd received the poison for the least amount of time, had been the luckiest, and regained all her former faculties almost inhumanly quickly. It was only a few days before she'd resumed her position at Naegi's side as he started the new Hope's Peak, serving primarily as an advisor to both the disorganized Future Foundation and the rebirthed Academy. 

Bandai and Izayoi were also revived, but not as wholly as Kirigiri. The full extent of their damage was, as yet, unknown, but they were already showing delays in their recovery. It didn't help that Yoi had been stabbed by Ruruka in addition to his poisoning, a hideous insult to injury.

But even of the poisoned, some remained dead: Kizakura had suffered too much trauma from his fall to bring him back. 

The whole thing read like a disorganized thriller. Tengan, the Foundation’s reliable old director, creating a killing game? Mitarai, who had always been so timid and kind, almost brainwashing the entire world? The Remnants of Despair returning to normal, and with the help of a somehow-recovered Hajime Hinata that still possessed the gifts of the Kamakura Project? It was all so improbable that it could be called an act of God.

Seiko Kimura flips through the briefing pages, absorbing what has happened in the outside world since she was last awake. Last _alive_. Seiko Kimura, her heart reconstructed and her body coaxed back into life; Seiko Kimura, who shouldn’t be here at all.

With the help of Hinata (or Kamakura? Seiko’s still unsure of how the two distinct people coexist in one body), Seiko had been saved: the only person among the “killers” to survive. Although she should've suffered skull fractures from ramming her head into the wall (this, she only vaguely remembers, the pain so much quieter than the guilt, the sorrow, the _despair_ ), her altered state ensured that a stab wound was the only wound she'd had to recover from—no small feat, but with the most superpowered person in the world at your disposal, a miracle was always close at hand.

But lightning rarely struck the same place ten times in a row, even with a lightning rod out; it was too much to ask for every single person to be brought back from the dead, whole and complete. Even so, Seiko couldn’t help feeling like she should be lying in a casket right now, with some other person in her place. After all, she was just the useless pharmacist who couldn’t save anyone during the Future Foundation’s killing game.

A soft knock, and not enough time for Seiko to slip on her face mask, before a woman steps into the room. Seiko feels the familiar rush of panic as her eyes meet the wide dull purple of Mikan Tsumiki's. Of course, there’s no reason to be afraid of the Ultimate Nurse anymore; her mind is the same now as it was before she met Junko Enoshima.

“U-um, Kimura-san?” she stutters, and starts a bit to see Seiko already up. “O-oh, you’re awake! I’m glad...I w-wouldn’t want to disturb you while you were trying to r-rest.”

She comes closer to the bed, her choppily-cut locks running across Seiko’s arm, and inspects the beeping machines that Seiko is all too familiar with but still doesn’t know the names of (living half your childhood in a hospital would breed that kind of familiarity).

“Your vitals a-are all stable and in a healthy range, s-so I think we’ll be able to take you off your m-medication in a few days!,” Tsumiki says, giving Seiko a watery smile. She always looked like she was on the verge of tears now, so much different from the dangerous and borderline-lewd Tsumiki Seiko had faced off against. “But d-do you need anything else b-before I go?”

Seiko debates using her voice, but just gives a short head shake instead.

“I-in that case, I’ll leave you a-alone, then.” Another smile: sweet, but nervous, as if Seiko could start yelling at her without warning. Seiko is familiar with that smile; she’s felt it on her own face enough times. “I’ll be b-back in a few hours with your pills, b-but if you need me before then, j-just call.”

Seiko nods, but she’s not really listening. Her attention is already back on the file, and on the photo of Ruruka, in stomach-turning detail, dead (dead, dead).

* * *

The next day, Tsumiki comes into Seiko’s room off-schedule, still stammering as much as before. Seiko doesn’t think she’ll ever get used to the ‘real’ Tsumiki, though she certainly prefers her. “U-um, Kimura-san?,” Tsumiki starts, as is customary. “There’s s-someone who wants t-to see you.”

Neither woman says anything, Tsumiki wringing the bottom of her apron anxiously, before Seiko finally manages through her dry throat, “...who is it?”

“A-ah! I-I forgot t-to tell you who it was! I’m s-s-so sorry!” Tsumiki bows, her hands clasped tightly. “I-it’s Sonosuke Izayoi who w-wants to see you...I-I told him I w-wouldn’t allow him in your room w-without your permission, s-so p-please forgive me...!”

Seiko is surprised to hear that Yoi wants to check on her. In their youth, she had never considered herself close with him, although they were on friendly terms through their dual devotion to Ruruka. When they were expelled, their few conversations ceased, and now that Ruruka is dead (dead, dead), he has even less of a reason to talk to her. So _why_ —

“He can come in,” her mouth says, the words muffled somewhat by her mask. Tsumiki nods a few times, wipes her eyes, and flits off to deliver Seiko’s olive branch.

It isn’t that Seiko doesn’t want to see Yoi at all, just maybe not so soon ( _it’s your fault Ruruka’s dead,_ she can hear him saying in her head, _if you hadn’t gotten us expelled_ and then the tired old arguments would start all over again). She wonders if this will be a chance to explain, to apologize, but she doesn’t have the energy to defend herself anymore. Better to let him believe what he wants to believe; she’s gotten used to his coldness after this many years (she tells herself, but the stab wound in her back is just as painful today as it was when she was young).

The door opens. He’s sitting in a wheelchair.

Seiko’s heart, fortified after so many years of loneliness, crumbles.

His blond hair is thin; deep purple bags accent the reddish-brown of his eyes. Without his coat, his long limbs and broad frame all seem too big for his body. He’s pushing himself, slowly. Seiko can see that his left hand isn’t gripping the rear wheel correctly; a side effect of paralyzing poisons is often muscle weakness (but he never did like accepting help, and she imagines him throwing Tsumiki off, _don’t touch me, I’ll do it myself,_ and it’s familiar and heartbreaking all at once).

Yoi and Ruruka were inseparable, and it appears that is true still. He’s here, alive, and yet a part of him seems...missing. Unrecoverable, more like. He hasn’t lost his fire, though, not yet, not like Seiko did when Ruruka dropped her.

Yoi stares her down, unabashed and fierce, and she holds his gaze in silence. From somewhere beyond that gaze, Seiko hears Tsumiki make her exit, and Yoi speaks.

“Take your mask off.”

His deep voice is scratchy; he hasn’t used it in a few days, most likely (she remembers the day his voice suddenly dropped, and how Ruruka had squealed _Yoi-chan, you’re a real man now!_ and asked Seiko what they should make Yoi say in his new, deep voice). She knows her own sounds no better.

“Why?” Her voice cracks, and she winces, clears her throat. “You know what’s behind it.”

“Take it off,” he repeats, and Seiko grudgingly obliges, throwing the mask on the bedside table.

“H-happy?” Seiko asks, baring her braced teeth at him.

Yoi leans back and crosses his arms. He’s always been a man of few words. Then again, everyone was when around Ruruka (Ruruka, who took all the oxygen in a room and turned it to cotton candy and sugar-sweet laughing gas); maybe old habits died hard for him.

“Ruruka is dead,” he says, scratching idly at his arm.

Seiko holds up her folder of photos and reports. “I know.” She pauses. “I-I’m sorry.”

She truly doesn’t know what else to say. However important Ruruka had been to her at any point in her life, it was nothing compared to Yoi. Seiko knew full well that Yoi would die for Ruruka’s sake; in fact, he _had_ , although there was no way he could have predicted that his beloved would be the one to betray him in the end. There are no words she can offer to soothe the sting of that sort of betrayal, or the ache of loss pulsing just behind his eyes.

But it doesn’t seem like Yoi expects Seiko to say anything, either. He’s staring at the guard rail on her bed, fidgeting with his nails, when suddenly he says, “You didn’t get us expelled,” and Seiko nearly chokes.

“What?” She’s incredulous, because she _knows_ it wasn’t her fault that all of everything went wrong during their exam, but to hear Yoi say it is something out of a dream.

“Was one of the Remnants. The lucky one. Story was too unbelievable to be faked.” He shrugs, then nods at the folder still in Seiko’s hands. “Info was in our individual files all this time.” 

“All this time...?”

A whirlwind of emotions passes through Seiko. Shock, that he would accept the story so easily now that Ruruka was gone (but a blinded man given sight often spoke of the world differently, didn’t he?). Anger, that the truth had been so close by for so long while the three of them bickered and fought over which side was right. Sadness, that so many years had passed fighting with her friend (her best friend—for so long, her _only_ friend) over something that was really neither of their faults.

But all of these emotions made way for a strange emptiness, a cleanliness. With no reason to fear Yoi exacting revenge on Ruruka’s behalf, Seiko had no reason to avoid him like she had in the past. It was too much to ask that everything return to normal (how could it, when both of them were adrift at sea with no candied-pink lighthouse to bring them home?) but maybe, just maybe, that was for the best. Maybe now Seiko could get to know the man behind the sharp eyes and the sharp blades. (Like he was formed special for his talent, he was straight lines and angles everywhere you looked, and always so hard to get close to, but) Maybe now things could be different.

Yoi doesn’t say anything, just keeps picking at his skin. “What’s wrong?” Seiko asks, as much a diversion as real concern.

He starts, meeting her eyes before quickly looking away. “Withdrawal.”

It makes sense immediately. Seiko, of all people, would know about the properties of sugar, know it was a drug just like any other black market substance out there. She almost chuckles when the thought of Ruruka as Yoi’s dealer instead of his girlfriend arises, but the possibility is too close to reality to truly laugh at.

She still can’t admit to herself how suspicious she’d been of their relationship, for so, so long. Seiko was silent about many things Ruruka said or did, but she wasn’t stupid; she saw the way Yoi followed her around, always dangerously protective of and loyal to her. She still hated to think about how she’d taken one of Ruruka’s many offered bonbons during her first year at Hope’s Peak and tested it for every substance she could think of (synthetic cathinones, nicotine, methylenedioxymethamphetamine, opium, salvia divinorum, fentanyl, anabolic-androgenic steroid compounds) and how _frustrated_ she'd been when she came up with nothing. She hadn’t understood then how powerful of a drug true love was (her friendship with Ruruka had been built on objects, on favors, on a give-and-take where Seiko gave and Ruruka took, how could she understand?).

But now, instead of using her talent to keep her above-water with Ruruka, maybe she could actually help someone who needed to be helped (isn’t that why she’d become a pharmacist in the first place?).

“I...I think I have a serum that can mitigate your symptoms in my lab. Maybe I can ask Tsumiki—” She reaches for the hospital call bell, but Yoi grabs her wrist with his good hand.

“Don’t,” he says. 

“Why not?” Her brow furrows. “I-if I can do something to—”

“I’ll be fine.”

“T-there’s no reason for you to suffer through withdrawal symptoms if you don’t have to!,” she protests, pulling on her hand fruitlessly.

He sets his jaw and averts his eyes. “I won’t use you like that.”

Seiko freezes, eyes wide. Yoi still won’t look at her.

She yanks her hand away from him (he is strong enough to have stopped her, why didn’t he?) and points a finger in his face. “You listen to me, Sonosuke Izayoi,” Seiko hisses, her teeth gritted. She can’t stop herself from tearing up. “I have one talent, one: pharmacy. And I can only use it in situations like this, no other time. This is the _one way_ I know how to help people. Let me help you.”

Yoi searches her face. Her tears are flowing unbidden now, both of her hands in shaking fists. He cocks his head.

“...Alright.” Yoi silently wipes Seiko’s cheeks with his sleeve (he’s being so gentle with her that she wants to cry more but that’d be inconsiderate of her, to cry while he was dabbing away her tears), then says, “You should rest, Seiko.”

She laughs sardonically, running her hand over her eyes. “You first.”

Yoi huffs, and Seiko smiles weakly. After a moment, Seiko shifts to turn her hands up to him, bitten nails beckoning. His brow furrows but he takes her hands in his. His palms are hard and calloused, and so very delicate. The puncture marks on his left wrist are still visible, dark and raised on his pale skin.

Seiko isn't religious, but she likes to believe that there's a reason for the way things are. At one time in her life, that had been her greatest weakness: thinking that it was her job to keep reaffirming the reason for her friendship with Ruruka through her talent. But now, the idea gives her strength. She and Yoi are here now, and maybe there is a reason that Ruruka hadn’t returned alongside them, however painful her absence.

“Yoi?”

“Hm?” He brings his eyes from where they stare at their joined hands to her own.

“I think we should continue on together. After we get out of here. It’d be nice if...I mean, I’d—” She squeezes, and he squeezes back (his right hand strong and sure, his left fluttering with the effort of a touch). “I-I’d like it if we could...be friends, again.”

“I’d like that,” Yoi replies, the soothing timbre of his voice a promise in itself (a destroyed and reformed chain is even stronger, for the memory of its separation makes it yearn to be together).  


**Author's Note:**

> It was a little all over the place this time around; I've never written for either of these characters and it's been a long time since I've watched the anime proper, so I apologize for my generous OOCization. Comments and kudos are appreciated, and (as always) I hope you enjoyed the story! What were your gripes with DR3 Future Side? Does anybody like Yoi other than me? Please let me know!


End file.
